Running Water
by planet p
Summary: AU; what if what she thought she knew, what she thought was real and true, wasn’t real at all? What if she had another chance – a chance to do things right?
1. Chapter 1

The London office.

I wake one night with the strange, unaffiliated thought lodged into the back of my mind. What is the London office, you might ask, as I do. The answer to that eludes me, still, as I rouse from sleep and sit in the semi-darkness; the mattress is cold.

I think of Cassie; of Daniel's grey eyes, of my own hands, hard and cold.

I am shaking. Why? I wonder. Is it because of Cassie, or Daniel, or this mysterious London office? I cannot be sure.

I remember Maureen; I remember that her children are named, in order: Hunter, Dark, Noble, and Pippa. _Strange names_, I think. Before, _Hang on!_ How did I know Maureen's kids' names? She'd never told me, from what I'd heard. So how?

Right, it was because of Eleanor and Walter (sometimes Walt) Kent.

I struggle to comprehend: _Who? Where are these names coming from? I don't know these people_, I think.

Maureen is screaming, crying, screaming. _No, come on, which is it; screaming or crying?_ I ask myself.

_Not your children, not yours, Eleanor's_, a voice whispers in the back of my mind. _Bullshit_, I want to scream. They'd come out of me, they were bloody well mine! Cassie, mine; Zach, mine!

_Who are you? Eleanor's, too. Owns you, she does, little monster._

Nausea rises in my stomach, reaching into my throat. I want to throw up, I want to run. I want the voice to stop, just stop! It doesn't.

_The kid had spirit, kid had legs; legs for kicking, for running. You remember, I know you do. Eleanor's not interested in anything like that; just productivity._

_Shut up! Shut up!_ she wanted to scream. _I killed her! I killed Cassie! No one else! I did it!_

_Think you did, sure. Messed with your mind, little monster. Messed with it good, took the child away from you; from Daniel and Zach. Don't worry, they're nothing much, nothing prodigious; already been checked, already been marked with an 'X' beside their names: they're no one anymore, little monster._

"Stop calling me that!" I holler, my patience snapping; brittle iron, brittle bones.

_Little monster? Don't you think it's appropriate? So _absolutely_ appropriate!_

I scream, _really_ scream. As it rings in my ears, I imagine that scream could take down whole herds of rampaging wildebeest. My lips sting; I scream harder.

I lurch off and up, from the bed, and stumble for the bathroom. On flicks the light, over to the mirror. I swallow my scream at confronting my mirror image, reflected in the glass.

_Fuck!_

'Fuck' is the only word I can think, then, loud and clear. Like a bell. _Fuck, fuck, fuckety, fuck!_

My lips are bleeding, streaming blood. Because I've just bitten into them, I remind myself. But… but my teeth are… different. All sharp and pointy, but not like a vampires, more like the Headless Horseman.

The blood continues to flow. There was no blood when I stole Cassie's life, stole what she'd stolen from me; tried to steal back my own life.

Blood.

Blood is on the wall. Splattered, splayed. My teeth ache with blood; so sore, my teeth. They take me down with a Taser. The Empath's name is Escher; her eyes are blank, until they are filled with my horror, my pain, my longing for my first-born child, my rage.

And, then-

It all changes.

They can do that, I know. Suddenly, I know.

_They can change it_, the voice says. _Change it all, anything they want, anytime they want, little monster. You are theirs. Hadid – on their payroll. Rachael – Rachael knows you, knows you from before. Lifetimes ago, little monster. Like sisters, you were. Oh, well, lifetimes ago, as I said._

I vomit in the sink. I can't stop vomiting. The pain takes over my body. _Like when Cassie was born_, I think. _I want Cassie, I want my Cassie._

Cassie's gone, you killed her; as good as killed her; let them 'take' her. Should have stopped them, little monster! Should have ripped shreds off them!

"I'm sorry!" I gasp, not sure to whom or what, but gasp all the same. "They were stronger!" Tears flow down my face with the vomit flowing down my chin; it's completely gross, but I can't help it.

It hurts! I just want Daniel. Daniel, Cassie, Zach.

"I want my family!" I cry, still crying, still blubbering.

_Daniel's with her now, with Maureen now_, the voice informs; _Maureen will look after him, Mary. She'll look after him whilst you're in India._

_I'm not in India!_ I think, wanting nothing more than to crush the voice out, right out of existence.

_Got to save her, little monster. Got to save our Cassie. Cassie's special, a real fairy princess. Wake up, little monster! Come out, come out of your cave, little hidey-hole! It's time to go to work! I know how you love work!_

And then, I remember. I just _remember_! I am a monster; human, but a monster. It is in my genetics, an anomaly of my genes.

I am a monster, but I did _not_ kill my daughter!

She was taken!

And it's time for me to take her back!

* * *

**Disclaimer** I don't own _Still Waters_ or _the Pretender_ or any of their characters.


	2. Chapter 2

I remember the mothers' club get-together at my house, how I'd dozed off for a moment or two; how I'd thought that the ambulance had responded rather speedily; the inconclusive findings of Cassie's autopsy report; how everyone had been ready to suspect Daniel, but not me.

And Rachael, I remember Rachael. Had I truly known her before? I wonder.

I am lying in bed. I am tired, but I cannot sleep. And then, I realise. I realise something about the past, about Cassie's knowing grey eyes. Never accusation, it had never been accusation; it had been observation. I remember the way she'd spoken her words, careful not to let them seem to advanced for her age; the way she'd looked at either Daniel or me when we'd spoken to her, as though uncomprehending. _My goodness_, I think, _oh fuck, Cassie did understand, she _did_ understand; all along!_

There is screaming. It is before Daniel wakes in the morning, but after I have smothered Cassie. There is a pain in my back, I am looking at Cassie, looking at her still form. Then, I see her chest rising and falling. I see hands wearing disposable gloves; the hands are reaching for my daughter. The pillow in my hands drops to the floor; it is picked up by a young woman, a nurse maybe. I have a moment to think, _What are all these people doing in my house! In my fucking house! What's more, in my fucking husband's house! You have no right, no right at all! Get your fucking hands off my daughter! If you even-!_

And then I'm out; out like a light.

When I wake, I don't remember that I'd been sleeping, I don't remember the voices' quiet suggestions; Cassie is still now, her chest doesn't rise and fall. It is almost morning; Daniel will wake soon.

In my memories, I leave the room.

_Nollie! Nollie will you listen to me! Let me have her! Just for a moment! I need to erect safeguards! None of this is right! None of it, at all! They're planning something! I can feel it! Nollie, for God sake!_

But this voice isn't mine; it is spoken through the bitchy eyes of Rachael, at the day care centre, that day Cassie had been sick.

I don't know who Nollie is; that's not my name, that name isn't mine. I don't hear the words, they are only a headache in my head.

_Nollie, please! I love you but you've got to let me in!_

All of the words come out now, tumbling from my memories like fleas from drowning rats. _Nice comparison_, I think dryly.

I am younger: there is Rachael, there is me; there is Maureen. And then I am older: I am nothing out of the ordinary: a mother, a wife; frequently harbouring anger over my life and its wasted opportunities.

_Oh, we were special_, I think, _us three girls: the Empath, the Reaper, and the Pretender._ I don't know what I'm thinking, of course, I just know that I can't stop the thoughts.

And then I think, _They've got my Cassie! Bitches!_

* * *

He'd only just found out about her; she wasn't a clone, she'd been made for him; a sister. She was Charles's daughter, but not Margaret's; she'd not inherited the Pretender expression, but her daughter, through her, had.

She was something else; something monstrous; he'd heard stories of Reapers; he'd met one once, it'd locked him in a closet, locked itself in, too; hiding from the witch. He tried his hardest not to remember; didn't want to remember things like that.

He was going to help his sister; they'd taken her kid, Cassie, the kid's name was, listed as Casablanca Artful Carter; Cassie. Listed as 'deceased; causes unknown.'

He wasn't a Pretender for nothing, though; seeking out artful deceptions was his game, just as finding his family was. He had to find his sister, now; she was the first piece of the puzzle that had stayed in one place long enough for him to track.

Her name was Lydia Carter, officially. Unofficially, she was codenamed Nollie. As a girl, her parents had worked for the Center's London office, but her father hadn't wanted to give her up, and so his wife had arranged for him to be taken stealthily and ambiguously out of the picture: it had been an 'accident.'

She'd married Daniel Carter and they'd had two children, Casablanca and Zachariah Carter. Cassie and Zach.

And that was when her past had come knocking. Friends had come with warnings, a mother had come with a task, plans had been set into motion. It wasn't all that easy, it never was. But they'd had a good chance with Lydia; she'd been theirs before; they knew how to manipulate her, and they planned to manipulate her for all she was worth. She'd never even know what had hit her!

_It's not that easy_, he'd told himself, when he'd read the evidence before him, the many littered files, scatter far, scattered wide. _It's not that easy to keep a Reaper down, eventually, it snaps back into place; it's not that easy to dupe them: she'll remember, I know she will!_

And he had to believe that is was true.

* * *

_All right, all right_, I think,_ enough is enough! If these creeps want a fight, then a fight is what they'll get. I've got teeth, I've got claws, I've got this wonderful new attitude they've given me called psychopathy!_

_I'm a magician! I can work wonders!_

_Watch me, just watch me!_

I leave the hotel room; I have a new mission. It's time to get started.


End file.
